Sunday, February 10, 2013

Toy Fair 2013: KRE-O GI Joe Coming This Month!

I'm sure you've seen the KRE-O Transformers (pretty cool, especially the sweet minifigs) and KRE-O Battleship (a little meh, mostly because it's Battleship), but did you know that Hasbro is extending it's in-house brick building line to include GI Joe? And it's the classic GI Joe that we all (a/k/a me) know and love.

It's an exciting time for block lines. It used to be just Lego with a license or two each year. Now Lego, MegaBloks and KRE-O all battle for the top licenses, and we're seeing more and more of our favorites pop up in block form. So... how do these hold up to the competition?

They actually look really cool! The figure style is a little wonky, but KRE-O is taking a pretty ballsy approach with their choices of characters and the amount of non-vehicle based playsets. I'm always a fan of an environment based set to house my figures, and 3/8 of the upcoming sets are environment based. Being a fictitious military based license, there are some sweet vehicles as well. And finally, the minifigures. So many good characters in what looks like 3 different series of blind packaged Kreons. (Did you know they are called Kreons?)

These are expected to release this month and prices are very affordable at just $2.99 to $39.99.

Click through the jump for images of all of it, and once again big thanks to Travis Denman and Vinylmation Kingdom for the images.

These 12 characters are listed as the Official First Figure Packs. Scarlett, Quick Kick, and Kim Arashakagi! So cool. I have a few of the Transformers minifigures and while they're a little delicate, the style is really cool. Heads are mostly oversized, and accessories are plentiful. That trend continues with the GI Joe line.

And wherever Figure Pack 1 falls in the release schedule... it knocks it out of the park. B.A.T. and Dr. Mindbender are both must haves. Blowtorch as well. Such a fun series. I'm assuming these are blind packaged as well, but they are listed as a separate Series 1 than the above characters. It would be interesting to see these together at a $20 price point, but I always prefer blind packaging over multi-packs.

Figure pack 2, with Croc Master! He was always a favorite. Mutt and Junkyard are awesome too. Otherwise a pretty decent series.

Onto the sets. There are 8 in total and they range from small to massive. The quality is pretty good, but like MegaBloks, I think KRE-O sets shine in their molded plastic pieces. The blue Armored Cobra Assault Vehicle below is a great example. Everything else looks fun though, and there are more awesome minigures like Wild Bill.